Hosted by the El-Hibri Foundation at 1420 16th ST NW, Washington, DC 20036 (near the corner of 16th and P Streets, close to Dupont Circle). Off-street fee-based parking is available at Colonial Parking on P Street between 16th and 17th Streets. Please RSVP to Eventbrite (http://goo.gl/IhbDG9). Send other inquiries to bheckman@elhibrifoundation.org.

Speakers

David Kinnaman (@barnagroup) is president and majority owner of Barna Group. He is the author of the bestselling books, You Lost Meand unChristian. Since joining Barna in 1995, David has overseen studies, polling the opinions and perspectives of more than 400,000 individuals. He has designed and analyzed research for the American Bible Society, Columbia House, Compassion, Easter Seals, Habitat for Humanity, Integrity Media, InterVarsity, NBC-Universal, the Salvation Army, Sony, Thomas Nelson, Prison Fellowship, World Vision, Harper Collins and many others.

As a spokesperson for Barna Group's work, David has been quoted in major media outlets such as USA Today, Fox News, CNN, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News, and The Wall Street Journal, among others. He is in demand as a speaker about faith and religious trends, teenagers and twentysomethings, and vocation and calling. David and his wife, Jill, live with their three kids in Ventura, California.

Alan Cooperman (@pewreligion) is director of religion research at the Pew Research Center. He is an expert on religion’s role in U.S. politics and has reported on religion in Russia, the Middle East and Europe. He plays a central role in planning the project’s research agenda and writing its reports. Before joining the Pew Research Center, he was a national reporter and editor at the Washington Post and a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press and U.S. News & World Report. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 1982 and started in journalism at the Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, Mass. He is an author of Mormons in America, Muslim Americans, the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey, “Nones” on the Riseand A Portrait of Jewish Americans. He also was the primary editor of Global Christianityand Global Restrictions on Religion. He has appeared on numerous media outlets, including NPR, BBC, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the NewsHour, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, MSNBC and C-SPAN.

Moderator

Michelle Boorstein (@mboorstein) has been the religion reporter for the Washington Post since 2006. Michelle’s path to her dream job as religion reporter began as a kid, trying to make sense of a kosher Jewish home that had three sets of dishes: meat, milk and Chinese food. Her career included a decade of globe-trotting with the Associated Press, covering topics including domestic terrorism in the Arizona desert to Ugandan royalty and how strapped doctors in Afghanistan decide who lives and who dies.

At the Washington Post, she reports on the busy marketplace of American religion. She has a Master’s (in Near Eastern Studies), a husband, a son and just two sets of dishes. The Religion Newswriters Association awarded her its “Religion Reporter of the Year” award for religion writing by large news organizations in 2011 and 2013.

About the Organizations

Religion Communicators Council (RCC), founded in 1929, is an interfaith association of religion communicators at work in print and electronic communication, marketing and in public relations. The RCC provides opportunities for religion communicators to learn from each other. Together, RCC members promote excellence in the communication of religious faith and values in the public arena and encourage understanding among religious and faith groups. Information about RCC membership is online at www.religioncommunicators.org. (@ReligionComm)

Religion Newswriters Association(RNA) is the world’s oldest and largest association for professional journalists writing about religion, faith and values in major media outlets. RNA encourages coverage of religion that is accurate, balanced, civil and fair. Over the last two decades, RNA has created the largest repository of tools and training guides about covering religion, found at ReligionLink.com. RNA hosts 19 international contests on religion news and draws hundreds of journalists to its annual conference. It’s collaborated in more than 100 trainings over the past decade. Information about RNA membership is online at www.RNA.org. (@ReligionReport)

El-Hibri Foundation (EHF) is a private foundation building a better world by embracing two universally shared values of Islam: peace and respect for diversity. EHF accomplishes this through grantmaking, programming and other activities in peace education and interreligious cooperation. (@ElHibriFdn)